An update on where Kate, our empathic care coordinator, stands today, what is taking shape next, and the road toward autonomous care transport — written for the people shaping the future of aged care.
Thank you for the time and the encouragement when we last spoke. I promised to follow up with a clearer picture of where careplans has progressed and, more importantly, where it is heading. I have set it out below in the way ARIIA itself frames sector change — across three horizons — because that is genuinely how we are building.
ARIIA exists to improve workforce capability through innovation, technology and evidence, and to lead the positive transformation of aged care nationwide.2 That mission is the test we hold our own work against. The Aged Care Act 2024 has now moved the sector to a rights-based, person-centred footing, with a Statement of Rights and seven strengthened Quality Standards covering clinical care, dementia, diversity and governance.3 Everything Kate does is built to make that day-to-day reality lighter for an already stretched workforce, rather than heavier.
What follows is honest about stage. Horizon 1 is live and in the hands of real coordinators. Horizon 2 is built and rolling out. Horizon 3 is a clearly articulated direction with a working public concept, not a finished product. I would value ARIIA's view on where the evidence base, the workforce-capability programs and the second-stage focus on technology and home care4 might intersect with what we are doing.
I should add that careplans is built on an explicitly ethical foundation: we have applied to become a supporter of the Vatican-convened Rome Call for AI Ethics.10 Our reach is also becoming international — an Italian-language site is live,12 a dialogue is underway with UNEBA, the Italian federation of around 1,100 non-profit social and aged-care organisations,11 and my Maltese citizenship provides a direct pathway to establish across the European Union.
If any of the three horizons is useful to the sector, I would welcome a conversation about how careplans could contribute as an evidence-generating partner rather than simply another vendor.
Resident“Kate, I have not been sleeping, and I did not want to bother my daughter about it.”
Kate“I am glad you told me. Let us take it gently — and with your okay, I will make sure someone on your care team knows, so they can help.”
A warm, unhurried voice call becomes a structured wellbeing reading, a consented note to the care team, and — if it matters — an escalation, without a single form being filled in.
Kate is the coordinator engine sitting between our provider-facing platform, careplans.io, and the family-facing app, nonni.ai.5 She makes and takes warm voice calls, listens for what matters, and turns a conversation into structured, consented, auditable care activity. Her full capability set is published at kate.nonni.ai.6
Stage, stated plainly: we are mid-pilot with one NSW residential aged care provider. The early signal is promising and the clinical evidence base is still being built — which is precisely where an evidence-led partnership with ARIIA would matter most.
Horizon Two is breadth. The same empathic voice core that powers Kate is being expressed as a family of purpose-built products, each tuned to a population the sector struggles to reach — at home, on a waitlist, caring unpaid, or far from anyone.9 This is where careplans follows ARIIA's second-stage emphasis on technology-enabled care and home care,4 and where a single platform reduces double-handling for an under-pressure workforce. The full family is published at careplans.io/our-family.
Under the surface, the same controls scale across all of them: a graphical workflow builder so non-technical staff can compose call programs and escalation rules visually, and resident-controlled, graduated family involvement.
Horizon Three is the moment the coordinator engine steps into the physical world. The same empathic mind that today listens on a call becomes a presence that can move a person, fetch a glass of water, or simply sit with someone at three in the morning. Two embodiments anchor this horizon: autonomous transport, and humanoid robots.
The hardest unmet need in older people's lives is often simply getting there. A resident says, “Kate, I need a lift to the doctor.” Kate books the vehicle, assigns a human carer for the door-to-door moments autonomy cannot cover, sets the route, and tells the family. The public concept is live at katerides.careplans.io.7 We have made initial contact with Zoox, the autonomous-vehicle developer, to explore future collaboration on the vehicle layer.
As capable, safety-rated humanoid robots reach the home and the facility, careplans intends Kate to be the empathic mind inside them — not the hardware, but the voice, judgement and care policy that make a machine trustworthy in a vulnerable person's room. Kate already turns conversation into consented, audited action; a humanoid gives that same logic hands and presence, under the same human-in-the-loop and resident-consent rules.
Stage, stated plainly: Kate Rides is a published vision with a working concept site and active partnership conversations; the humanoid embodiment is a stated direction, gated on safe, affordable hardware reaching aged care. Both are deliberately on the horizon — included because they show where an empathic coordinator engine leads once it can act in the physical world. The safeguarding, consent and evidence questions they raise are exactly where a partner like ARIIA matters most.
A snapshot of Kate's live capabilities. The complete, current list is maintained at kate.nonni.ai.6
Inbound and outbound calls in a natural, unhurried voice that older people are comfortable talking to.
Validated instruments administered conversationally — wellbeing, mood, anxiety and sleep — no forms.
Prosody and sentiment signals flag a distressed or flat tone, not only the words that were said.
When something needs a human, Kate alerts the on-call nurse or chaplain instantly, with consent and audit.
Graduated, resident-controlled disclosure keeps the right people informed without overstepping.
Books transport, calls family, chases follow-ups — the coordination work that otherwise never gets done.
Every care action Kate can take, and exactly when she escalates — the detailed reference that sits behind the summary above.
careplans is an Australian company with a deliberately ethics-first and international posture. The values underneath the technology are anchored to a recognised global framework, and the same engine that serves an Australian provider is being readied for Europe.
ARIIA has channelled $16.9 million into industry-identified problems and funded 62 projects nationwide.8 Our Horizon One pilot is exactly the kind of early-evidence, workforce-relieving innovation that benefits from a rigorous, sector-trusted lens. I would welcome a conversation about how careplans and ARIIA might work together.